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Without an explicit political discourse, these two
exhibitions aim to reveal through painting and sculpture the recent changes
in Chinese society.
In 2002, our Zhang Huan exhibition illustrated
the experiences of an artist from the East Village group, confronted with
the state repression of art. This year, we have tried to express this same
rebellion against tradition, but through a more sensual and feminine approach.
Both art and society have been enriched by the opening up of the economy,
reconstruction of towns, changes in urban lifestyles and the the new rôle
of women. All these upheavals have given rise not just to a new vision of
the modern world, but to new approaches and styles.
The majority of these artists grew up
within the official arts schools, developing astonishing pictoral techniques.
Despite the permanent control of the authorities and rigid social pressures,
they escaped the drab state traditions and looked at the mutations of contemporary
society, enriching it all with a narrative and figurative style. The brutal
arrival of the new market economy had made a utopian engagement impossible:
these new artists focused instead on themselves rather than the community.
Feng Zheng-Jie portrays and stylises modern vamps; Zhu Bing reclaims her femininity
through her erotic-morbid floral allegories; Ma Liuming creates a cross-dressing
alter-ego; Luo Xu sculpts and choreographs symphonies of women‘s legs; Yang
Qian voyeuristically peeps women at their most intimate; Chen Lingyang examines
cycles in nature through menstruation.
These are unique visions of a world in
metamorphosis. Secrets and revelations are brought to light, erotic fantasies
are opened up, not quite imaginary but not quite real. Each artist discourses
on pleasure, sensuality, fear and death.
They draw on the traditional vocabulary
of genre painting and portraiture, as well as oriental iconography, to render
all the more powerful their confrontation with other cultures. This is particuarly
striking in the floral works of Zhu Bing and Feng Zheng-Jie.
View available works by Feng Zheng-Jie
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Bathroom (13701363454)
Yang Qian
Oil on canvas
2003
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Ma Liuming |
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The most politicised of these artists
is without doubt Ma Liuming, born in 1969 in Huangshi in Hubei province. He
comes from the East Village in the Beijing suburbs, a community of dissident
artists known for their experimental performances and photography. Accused
of pornographic activities, he was imprisoned and the community was dismantled.
The persona Ma Liuming adopts for his
performances is Fen-Ma Liuming, a hybrid transvestite, with a man’s body and
a women’s face. Through this provocative appearance, Ma Liuming questions
the conventions of Chinese art and society. He examines rigid social codes,
the ambiguity between the sexes, appearances and reality. He asks the spectator
about his identity and internal contradictions. In doing so, he calls for
the active participation of his audience, observing their interventions.
View available works by Ma Liuming |
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Zhu Bing
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Born in 1964 in the province of Hubei,
Zhu Bing became a dancer in the Yichang Company and is now a painter and poet
in Beijing.
Defying the ‘walk-on parts’ traditionally
allotted to the Chinese woman ; she belongs to the generation of sensual
mei nu zuo jia (beautiful woman writers). In her large vivid canvases,
she speaks of female identity and her right to love and pleasure, as symbolised
by a rose. This rose takes many suggestive forms, like the flowers of Georgia
O’Keefe. But in the enlightened world of Zhu Bing, death is as present as
love, and in her collection of poems “The Rose of Paradise” she expresses
her fears:
After crossing the darkness of the
caves
Between the roots we will hear
The blood which flows to the flower
at its birth
Your secret love: dreams and death
at the same time
View available works by Zhu Bing |
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Yang Qian
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Born in Cheng Du in 1959, Yang Qian pursued
an academic career and trained to be a teacher. Blessed with an extraordinary
photorealist technique, he voyeuristically observes women in steamy bathrooms,
washing and applying make-up. He invites the spectator to participate in this
ritual, implicating us in an erotic but rather virtual game. He reveals their
identity obliquely, writing their phone numbers, often real, on the shower
screens. These bathroom windows reveal the distance of the artist from his
model and denounce a society where women remain remote, inaccessible, subservient
to the ancient laws of duty and respect.
View available works by Yang Qian |
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Luo Xu
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Born in Yunan Province in 1956, Luo Xu
began an unlikely career as a builder and rabbit farmer before devoting himself
to sculpture. In 1996 he retreated to an “Earth Nest” – a womb-like workshop
where he has been working in clay for the past six years. His sculpture revolves
around women’s legs, which constitute for him a knew kind of beauty and a
means of expression: a lively musical language within a space both real and
imaginary.
Worried, like many Chinese artists, by
ecological disaster, and envisaging the destruction and defilement of nature,
his autonomous legs linger on like the last trace of beauty and sensuality
in the world. He joins forces with the limbs in a priapic exaltation:
Listen to the breasts of the young
girl as they swing in the wind,
The love-making of goats in the bushes
Look at the thighs of the women moving
in the ripples
Dogs run after bitches
Their paws causing storms
View available works by Luo Xu |
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Chen Lingyang
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In collaboration with the Galerie Anne
Lettrée
Chen Lingyang was born in 1975 in a small
town next to Shanghai. Well-established in the Chinese underground scene,
she denounces the social and political subservience of Chinese women.
The artist questions the relationship between humans and
nature, a concern dear to Chinese philosophy and culture. For Chen Lingyang,
nature expresses itself with the laws and rhythms of the universe. She explores
its cycles intimately by observing her own body and menstrual cycle, a metaphor
for passing time. Her series of photographs, the 12 Flower Months,
combine the flowers which grow in each month of the year (the narcissus, the
lotus, the camelia and so on) with photos of her body and genitals, reflected
in the mirror during her periods. The forms of these photoprints are inspired
by garden architecture.
View available works by Chen Lingyang
Feng Zheng-Jie
To find out more about Feng Zheng-Jie, please read our introduction to the exhibition Regards de gauche à droite.
In collaboration with Xin-Dong Cheng at Beijing.
See also, at the Galerie Albert Benamou, Regards de gauche à droite.
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